[andsoitis]

> an economic system predicated on individual autonomy and naked self-interest whose incentives run counter to child-rearing.

It's not just rich places that are becoming less fertile.

"Demographers have long shown that what really counts is girls’ education. Schooling means that girls gain more autonomy and a greater say in life’s decisions." - https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/06/04/indias-surprise...

[surgical_fire]

Poor places also run on Capitalism. They just got the short end of the stick.

[toomuchtodo]

Capitalism runs on surplus labor, which was only able to work for the last several decades because of a population boom because women were not educated empowered (this is referred to as a (“demographic dividend”). Now that women are educated and empowered, fertility rates are rapidly falling, and labor surplus is falling. What comes next when you run out of labor to squeeze for profits? I don’t know, but I think it’ll be interesting to observe, and the fertility rate globally is likely to continue to fall well into the future (~40% of pregnancies annually are unintended; as systems improve to further prevent unintended pregnancy, this will lead to lower fertility rates).

Any efforts to improve socioeconomic systems to make having children a more attractive economic proposition (and thereby increasing the fertility rate) will take years to implement, perhaps longer, if at all. Like a furnace warming a room, it’s getting colder faster than the thermostat can ever raise the temperature back up.

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/population-and-demograp...

Population tool: How will populations across the world change in the 21st century? - https://ourworldindata.org/population-simulation-tool

The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44866621 - August 2025 (400 comments)

[thisislife2]

Did you read the article? It makes an interesting comparison of the birth rate of West Germany (that had a capitalistic industrialisation model) and East Germany (with a communist industrialisation model) and suggests that East Germany did create such an socioeconomic model where woman were in the workforce (in large numbers) and also didn't hesitate to become mothers because of the support structures provided for them. Ofcourse, capitalistic consumer culture here is an important factor too - many affluent people today don't want to have kids or a large family because they are afraid of the impact it will have on their consumerist lifestyle.

[toomuchtodo]

Scandinavian countries provide robust parental support, in some cases with shared parental leave exceeding a year, and the fertility rate has still not gone up.

In the context of improving systems to make the idea of having children more palatable, my thoughts are a four-day work week, fully subsidized childcare, universal healthcare, etc. Outside of a few countries who may have some pieces of these policies, I don’t believe there’s any political appetite to implement these policies at scale.

Broadly speaking, the economic and time burden of having children in the current macro is simply too high for many. They are luxury good.

US data: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/parents-under-pressu...

[spwa4]

Yes but you won't hear them talk about what happened to people who consistently chose not to work. Which is relevant here because motherhood was effectively one of the only ways women could get out of working for a longer period of time (3 months before, sometimes more, and a full year after birth), without going to prison ... or worse. Plus a baby was one of the very few ways to get a raise.

Of course this fact isn't mentioned in the article.

I will say, one of the very few things that the Soviet communists should receive credit for is indeed their rejection of traditional social norms. Equality for women was much further along on the other side of the Iron curtain. Women became doctors sooner. Women became professors sooner. Etc. That was definitely a Soviet achievement. True.

But something this article really tries to downplay: this didn't stop fertility rate from falling fast. It just took slightly longer before it started falling. Slightly.

[toomuchtodo]

There’s a great book related to this topic and supports your thesis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Women_Have_Better_Sex_Unde...

[Ferret7446]

That's because the premise is wrong

> an economic system predicated on individual autonomy and naked self-interest whose incentives run counter to child-rearing

A free market is just the natural state of things which reflects what people want vs the reality of resource constraints. For example, even in communist societies there will always be a (underground) free market.